Doing Things The Hard Way (ie Raised Veggie Garden Borders)

Do you ever feel like you end up doing everything the hard way? First you do it the quick way and then you do it another way and then you do it the right way?

In this instance I'm talking about our veggie garden. I've put in a lot of work over the past two years planting out different varieties, building up the soil, endlessly weeding and defending it all against the constant threat of possum decimation.

And it's been great - but I'm about to start it all again from scratch.

Despite always knowing that raised beds are popular for a good reason - we've ploughed on with our ground level patch. Until two weeks ago when Mr Tchotchke decided it was high time we not only properly edged but also raised our little patch, and not one to do things by halves, I decided we should probably carry the edging along my rose bushes, fruit trees, and another little garden bed too just for good measure.

So after careful measuring, plotting, planning and purchasing... Mr T went ahead and did all the hard work.

Doesn't it look great?

I gotta say, I'm so proud of him... for someone with zero construction experience he's done pretty damn well.

After searching for soil suppliers on a few gardening websites I somehow got sidetracked into reading a debate on whether it's safe to use treated pine sleeper on veggie gardens - and of course got totally nerve-wracked on the whole issue. (the above sleepers are treated pine).

So my next job is to line the inside of the sleepers with builders plastic, and then shift the frangipani tree, rip out the remaining plants (maybe the banana tree too?) and then fill the whole thing up with new soil and compost.

Easy huh? (I kinda wish we'd done it this way from the start.)

Surprise Harvest

I've gotten a bit disheartened with our veggie patch of late. My cucumber seedlings got scratched out by naughty chicken feet. My zucchini seedlings got eaten by rogue possums. My pumpkin vine shrivelled up and died. Ditto the choke vine. Ditto the corn. My chia plant still fails to produce any seeds. My two lone passionfruit are MIA.  My chillies are on strike. Sigh.

Sometimes its easy to get discouraged, when all the hard work fails to pay off. Sometimes you're too tired, too hot, too hungover - there are too many weeds to pull, too many grasshoppers to battle.

But sometimes a veggie patch is still generous enough to offer up some treats, despite the fact you've wilfully neglected it for weeks on end.

The sweet potatoes were a welcome surprise in a corner that I thought I'd harvested months ago. And the lemongrass might be a bitch to pull out but it's so low maintenance it can be forgiven. And the wee butternut pumpkin was the lone survivor of a vine that could't handle the summer heat. But it was so cute it finally motivated me to get back into the patch and sow some more seeds.

Taschen's The Vegetable Garden

Mr T hit it out of the ball park this Christmas.

Oh yeeeah! As soon as I ripped open the wrapping and saw the Tashsen logo I squealed a little.

There's a lovely flip through pamphlet with a blurb on gardening and the key for each image..

...and then 46 divine fine art prints of veggies!

They're pretty huge and did I mention there were 46 of them! I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with them yet - there's a wall in the kitchen that I could potentially frame 6 or 8 of them, otherwise I was thinking of maybe dotting them around our spare room so that future poppets would grow up with a love for illustrated veggies. Our veggie patch is very dry and unproductive at the moment so I think I'll just be admiring these veggies for a little while instead.

Ch-ch-ch-chia!

Everytime I use chia seeds I think of the chia pet ad at the beginning of Wayne's World. Ch-ch-ch-chia! Just me?

I made these yummy pink grapefruit and organic yoghurt cups for dessert last night.

And I sprinkled crunchola and chia seeds over the top for extra texture.

Since I've been sprinkling chia seeds on everything recently - this caught my eye in Bunnings a few weeks ago.

Don't you love the tagline - Kids love them!

It's done pretty well in the veggie patch so far - it's popped out these blue flower heads which google tells me will then form into seed heads - for my first chia seed harvest!

Ch-ch-ch-chia!

You Have Good Soil!

I often find myself blaming the soil when a plant in our veggie plot doesn't do well "oh we don't have very good soil, there are big chunks of clay, the builders dumped cruddy soil there, blah blah blah."

I know - boo hoo. It's too late to dig it all up and start again so I just do my best adding compost (all that dirty straw from the chicken coop goes into the compost heap), mulching, watering with worm juice and seasol, and chucking out the big clay clods when I come across them.

But I read something encouraging this week.

I've had Organic: Don Burke's Guide to Growing Organic Food for a little while, but like all good books  - its seems to reveal something new with revisit.

In his chapter on soil preparation - he notes that you can't buy great soil in Australia - that soils sold by nurseries are alluvial silts (which according to old Donny fail to develop proper soil structure and won't allow roots enough oxygen to breathe).

My fave bit was:

"Your own soil is good. It is the best soil that you can ever get. Work that soil up with compost, manures, gypsum etc and it will be perfect. So many people say that their soil is no good because it is clay. Clay soils are amongst the best soils in the world! Never let any of your soil leave your property. It is pure gold."

Good old Don. So - no more blaming the soil. Which I guess leaves the rest up to me...

Kale: Coming Soon To A Veggie Patch Near You! (Or Me)

A few weeks ago I embarked on a short lived Clean detox (inspired by reading this book). Although I couldn't stick with the fruit smoothies for dinner (in winter!) for more than four days - I did take a few things on board.

One of key ingredients in a few of the suggested meals and smoothies was kale. I'd never seen kale at our local supermarkets but knew that the West End markets stalls would surely have some. They did - however this lovely bunch with its vivid purple and green tipped curly leaves set me back $5.

Apparently kale is one of the most nutritious vegetables like, ever.

Which is great - but at $5 a pop for a few leaves it won't exactly be on high rotation at dinnertime.

Hanging Chicken Feeder and Tres Chic Tomatoes

I spotted an extra little friend in the chicken coop last week (let me give you a hint - it rhymes with house..) and realised that we needed to re think our hanging feeder set up.

Mr Tchotchke knocked up a great little hanger from the mesh roof of the coop - and when I queried how it would go in the rain - he repurposed an old light fitting to act as shield. Not bad hey? 

Charlotte likes it.

My Mutant Zucchini

So here is our first zucchini, just lounging around on a deck chair.

In case you didn't notice.. its a little odd looking, fatter at one end, slightly withered and puny at the other.

A little web research has helped me determine that it's been incompletely pollinated. I found out here that "When pollination is incomplete the fruit develops unevenly because the ovary wall enlarges more adjacent to fertilised seed." It goes on to mention that in cold growing conditions female flowers open before the male flowers so there isn't enough pollen present.

Since Mr Tchotchke hand pollinated it he's considering a little soft music and candlelight before his next attempt.

I'm hoping that it's similar to making pancakes and the first one is always a little wonky, but the next one will come good.

Garden Update: Peas, Radishes and Zucchinis

I spruced up a bare patch in the veggie garden this afternoon with these sugar snap peas. 

The last batch of bean seedlings I bought were (unbeknownst to me) the dwarf bush variety which disappointingly didn't climb up my pretty support frame. I've left these uncovered so if they make it through the week without being eaten by a possum I'll be amazed.

Choko-licious

After regaling his co-workers with tales of our veggie garden Mr Tchotchke was gifted a sprouting choko from Sheila the lovely accounts lady.

It's not a pretty fruit but it promises to be a vigorous vine (according to my trusty Yates Garden Guide) 

What Else is Happening in the Garden?

Remember the tomato seedlings from this post? Those pics were from back in March - and they didn't look too different through April and May I can tell you now. I brought them outside, I brought them back inside, I put them in the sun, I put them in the shade - they didn't grow. 

At last I got so frustrated I plucked them out of their little trays and put three of them in the veggie patch - I knew I was meant to wait until they'd grown way bigger to transplant but they literally hadn't developed any further leaves for over a month.

Two weeks later look at how well this little one is going!

And Mr Tchotchke planted some supermarket Sebago potatoes a few weeks ago and their shoots are coming up now too. We had some real success with potatoes last year so I hope these ones go forth and multiply.

On the weekend I transplanted the rest of the struggling seedlings into the veggie patch to see if it would spur on some growth also.

Well they haven't been eaten by possums yet - that's a small victory in itself.